The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
Typically, documents generated by workers in an enterprise are checked-in or uploaded into the enterprise's internal document repository so that other internal employees can access and update the documents. Documents checked-in to the enterprise's internal document repository are typically created using a machine-readable format, such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML). In some cases, the documents are intended to educate or assist an external audience, i.e., users or readers external to the enterprise. For example, help documents are generated to explain or describe products for users who purchased or are interested in purchasing the products. When these documents are created, they too are XML formatted documents and typically checked into the enterprise's internal document repository. These documents are then transmitted to a destination document repository in a cloud environment that is accessible by the external audience through a web portal via a public network, such as the Internet.
Nevertheless, because the documents are XML formatted, they cannot be rendered “as is” by a web portal or web browser. In order to display the documents in the web portal or other human-readable form, the documents must be converted from XML to a human-readable format, such as eXtensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML). Once converted, the document can be rendered by a web portal and presented to the external audience.
The process of converting the document from the machine-readable format, i.e., XML, to the web browser/web portal compatible format, i.e., XHTML, is a time consuming task. Typically, the conversion is performed by a human administrator responsible for such matters prior to transmitting the documents to the destination document repository. The administrator can retrieve a document from the source document repository and load it into a format converter module, which reformats the document into the desired format. The administrator can then manually identify certain information about the document from the reformatted document, such as the document's title, its creation date, and the author. This information can be used to define or describe the document for future reference. The administrator then typically transmits the converted document to the destination document repository, where it can be stored and accessible by the external audience via a web portal.
Without doubt, the process of integrating documents from the enterprise's document repository to the destination document repository in the cloud environment is a tedious and costly process because it must be monitored by at least one administrator. The task becomes even more daunting when the enterprise's document repository receives thousands of new and/or updated documents every day or week.